


winter in the pub

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint loves a good Christmas, Drinking & Talking, Fight me about Natasha and Nebula parallels, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 07:52:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17137907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: “You don’t know what it’s like.”“What what’s like?” Natasha asks curiously.Nebula’s lips turn up in sardonic pleasure. “To be unmade.”Natasha smiles grimly. “Try me.”





	winter in the pub

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlphaFlyer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaFlyer/gifts).



> Written for **alphaflyer** for the 2018 **be_compromised** Secret Santa, for the prompt: _Natasha and Nebula, over drinks_ and since it's me, good ol' fashioned Clint and Natasha in the early days. 
> 
> Also, my headcanon is that Nebula has definitely been to Earth at least once before for whatever reason.
> 
> Title from Kissing Party. Banner by **inkvoices**.
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

The message comes through on her SHIELD account on a cold winter afternoon when she’s jetted off to Pennsylvania after finishing another job -- a note from Fury asking (politely) if she’d mind doing some recon work for him.

 _Send Clint_ , she replies when she emails back from her phone, and it’s all she can do not to whine like a child. It’s a small thing, really, but she’d been looking forward to one day of actual relaxation with wine and maybe some food indulgences before retreating back to the hellhole of New York. The city annoyed her on a normal basis and winter was Natasha’s most hated season for both the tourist reasons and the over-decorated reasons. Despite the fact that SHIELD tried to make things as festive as possible and Clint always put a small tree up in his apartment, she remained pessimistic when this time of year rolled around, though she'd admittedly grown a little fond of Clint’s drooping tree -- but only because Clint insisted on decorating it with stupid ornaments they picked up from their assignments overseas, and let her win the argument that multicolored lights were stupid and useless.

(“I could kill a man with those,” Natasha had remarked the first time she peeked into his stash of decorations, pulling out the long strings.

“Christ, Nat,” Clint had muttered, rubbing a hand over his face, clearly disturbed even though Natasha knew he had to be used to her remarks by now. “Show some goddamn respect for the holiday.”)

 _This is a Romanoff job_ , Fury writes back, before sending her another message. Natasha opens it with her thumb and squints; it’s a file containing information on a girl by the name of Nebula.

“Nebula,” she mutters to herself, scanning the black and white photo of a woman who looks like she’s made of both human and metal. She opens her keyboard to type again.

 

_Robot, or something else?_

_Not Red Room, that’s for sure._

_Thank you for stating the obvious, sir._

 

She’s not exactly sure what Fury wants her to do with this information or this girl. Upon further scrutiny of the file, she realizes she’s not even sure _why_ she’s supposed to do anything with this at all; while Nebula looks human in some sense (mostly thanks to her features, because Natasha has learned that the most important thing to focus on when meeting someone or studying someone for the first time is their facial expression) everything else about her –- from her bald head to her metal arm to her cybernetic enhancements –- screams that she isn’t from this world.

 

_Where is she from?_

_That’s to be determined. We think somewhere in space._

 

 _Somewhere…in….space_. Natasha stares at the words for a long time, until she realizes that standing still in the middle of a busy street is the one thing she'd kill anyone else for. She moves quickly, ducking behind a corner to get out of the way of pedestrian traffic.

Well, at least space would definitely be better than America in the middle of the goddamn holiday season.

 

_So there are aliens._

_Believe it or not, there’s a lot of things out there, Agent Romanoff._

 

_***_

 

She can’t exactly tell her boss that she won’t follow through on his orders, especially when her only excuse is that it’ll cut into her “me” time. She does send Clint a quick text through their encrypted comm unit that just says _I’ll be home a day later than planned. Don’t wait up for me_ , which prompts a response of _wow, whose ass did you have to kick today, Tash?_

Natasha’s job is not really much of a job at all so much as it is a chance to start a game. She has no idea why Nebula is on Earth or why Fury is so insistent on needing her to start some kind of peaceful (however misleading) communication, but it’s not the first job where she’s felt like she’s flying blind and she knows it won’t be the last. Truthfully, she would’ve liked at least a _little_ more information before walking into the bar Fury has directed her to, but if there was one thing she felt confident about doing at any point during a mission it was drinking and bullshitting -- especially if that kind of bullshitting was because she was trying to lead someone into a trap.

Despite a cloaked appearance and an obvious attempt to blend in with the patrons loudly shouting across the bar in what Natasha recognizes as a gross showing of drunken holiday cheer, she's able to spot Nebula easily. Wedged into a corner near some garlands and holding a glass of clear liquid in her hand, she looks both pissed off and on edge; although Natasha can't see her face well she can see the discomfort from the way her body is positioned. Natasha scans the room, trying to make herself look casual in case she’s been noticed, then walks confidently towards her and takes an open seat.

“Vodka, on the rocks.” She has no idea if Nebula understands her language or for that matter, any other language -- did aliens have some kind of understanding about languages? Did they even speak English? She doesn’t pay Nebula any attention until she looks up in the middle of downing her drink, managing to catch a pair of curious eyes.

The first thing she notices about Nebula’s eyes is that they’re real; if nothing else about Nebula is actually human at least her eyes are, which Natasha thinks might mean something. She only lets herself stare at her for a second before she averts her gaze.

“Bad day,” she says by way of explanation after she finishes her drink, signaling for another. Nebula doesn’t say anything and takes a small sip of her own drink.

“I’ve been there.”

“Yeah,” Natasha agrees. “Me too. Who would’ve thought I’d end up _here_ of all places? I mean, what do they call this place? The City of Brotherly Love? And I swear to god, every single person I’ve met tonight has treated me like shit. Must be something in the water.”

Nebula still looks wary, but lifts her glass. “To being treated like shit,” she says with a bitter tone. Natasha smiles inwardly; it had been a simple guess that her best chance of starting this conversation lay in some sort of emotional or physical hurt. Alien or not, Nebula was still a girl -- and as Natasha has learned (and experienced first-hand), there were few girls in the world who _couldn’t_ relate to some shitty story about abuse, bad treatment, or unfairness.

Natasha looks down at the counter, wiping her finger over the sticky hardwood. “Tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

Nebula snorts quietly. “Like I’m going to fall for that trick. I’m not _that_ easy.” She looks up, eyes flashing, and this time Natasha can detect a fire inside her pupils that seems more deadly than usual. “I don’t even know you.”

“And I don’t even know _you_ ,” Natasha argues. “But if you want to fix that, I’m Nadine.”

Nebula hesitates. When she speaks, she stumbles over the letters, as if she’s trying to think of something else to say, as if she's not sure if she wants to use whatever alias Natasha knows she'll decide to use out of self-protection. “G – Gabby.”

“Gabby,” Natasha repeats with a nod. “Well, if we’re going to trade stories, let me tell you about the guy who I just left. He was a real fucking asshole.” It’s a story she’s rehearsed before, a story she's told so many times she doesn't even need to think about it. Much like her cover, she knew this story inside out, just as well as she knew Nadine inside out -– trauma survivor, outcast, orphan. A girl who went looking for love and found it in all the wrong places and all the wrong people and who still hasn’t fixed anything in her life, which is why she’s alone at a bar with all the other sad patrons trying to not make the same mistakes over and over again. When she’s done talking, she drinks again, trying to gauge how Nebula will respond.

For using the same story over and over again in her covers and missions, Natasha’s learned that it always invites different reactions. Some marks let their emotions break faster than a brittle twig. Some didn’t react at all, having seen it all before. Most believed her. Some didn’t, and those missions ended badly, or with a lot of yelling in Fury’s office. She’d told her story to Clint once; they were stranded in Sao Paolo and waiting for extraction and even though he knew the girl talking to him wasn’t being entirely truthful, he still yelled at her for making him want to hit a phantom man out of rage for what he had done to someone he cared about. (They were tired and cold _and_ starving, and Natasha hadn’t had the heart to tell him that while the story wasn’t entirely true, there was a reason why Nadine was such an easy cover to hide under.)

And so Natasha’s surprised when Nebula laughs. She tries to hide it at first but she can’t seem to help herself, bringing her gloved hand up to her mouth.

“Is something funny?” Natasha asks.

Nebula shakes her head, reaching for her drink. “What a damn sob story,” she manages to get out. “I mean, really. It makes mine look like a fairytale.”

Natasha frowns, because she can tell Nebula’s obviously being sarcastic. It doesn’t bother her (doesn’t bother Nadine, in any case), but she’s still not exactly sure what her mission is here aside from trying to connect with Nebula the same way she would try to play any other mark. Fury hadn’t necessarily asked her to gain Nebula’s trust but he also hadn’t warned her of the fact that she could be dangerous, and Natasha hasn’t missed noticing that in addition to the probable damage that could be done with her robotic body, there’s a thick knife sheathed in her boot.

“I’m happy to talk shop if you have something you want to tell me,” Natasha says when Nebula finally stops laughing. Her face abruptly changes, lips sliding into two straight lines, and the hood of her oversized jacket falls back from her head. Nebula quickly grabs for it, shielding herself again before she hunches forward.

“You don’t know what it’s like.”

“What what’s like?” Natasha asks curiously.

Nebula’s lips turn up in sardonic pleasure, and she sighs. “To be unmade.”

Natasha smiles grimly. “Try me.” She pushes the rest of her drink towards her in a show of support and Nebula stares at it for a long time before picking it up.

“My father is -- was -- _is_ , I guess, he’s not dead or anything -- abusive. I had an adopted sister and he would make us fight each other all the time in a lot of violent ways.” Nebula pauses, her words stilted, as if it’s taking all of her strength not to burst with vitriol. “I’m not sure who I am anymore.”

 _So is that why you’re here on Earth? You’re running away from something?_ Natasha thinks to herself. “So that’s why you’re sitting in a bar the week before Christmas, drowning your sorrows,” she decides out loud.

Nebula narrows her eyes. “So are you, _Nadine._ ”

Natasha raises her eyebrows. “Wasn’t getting defensive,” she says, holding up her hands. “Just saying that I get it.”

“Yeah, not being able to find love is the same thing as being forced to fight your own sister for someone else’s pleasure, like you’re some sort of tournament champion who is a disposable piece of shit,” Nebula responds dryly. Natasha bites down on her lip, weighing the careful balance of how to respond without actually giving anything away. Regardless of what Nebula did or didn’t believe, Natasha didn’t just hand out her past on a silver platter, inviting people to take a bite of the assortment of horrors. She used parts of her history in cover stories, she used what she’d learned in the Red Room in her missions with Clint, but she kept the nightmares and bad memories boxed up underneath her bed. That box was rarely opened unless Clint could finagle the lock, and she doesn’t want to admit that he’s becoming better and better at it.

But Natasha notices that Nebula’s eyes have emotions in them that Natasha thinks _she_ might not even realize she’s showing. And she suddenly feels for this cybernetic possible alien woman, this maybe assassin, this abused girl, this person who Fury has, for whatever reason, decided she should talk to on a random day in December.

“I grew up in a really bad place,” Natasha says finally. “No one cared about me and no one saw me as anything but an object, not even the people who raised me. I was trained to be tough, but I never learned how to have any emotions. I could never feel for the trauma I went through or understand it.”

“Well.” Nebula swallows, and Natasha can tell that she hasn't expected to receive such a gentle answer. “I guess we’re even.”

Natasha flashes a quick smile. “You could say that.”

They both lapse into silence, and Natasha finds herself thinking about Clint -- his stupid apartment with too many coffee makers and creaky floors, his stupid droopy tree, the way he tried to get her gifts every year even though she always managed to figure out he was planning to surprise her, thus ruining the mood. She finds herself feeling warm and she knows it’s not from the alcohol; the holidays were shitty and she hated New York during Christmas and she was never going to join in on Maria Hill’s cookie contests or SHIELD’s White Elephant exchanges that Coulson liked to run. But she had somewhere to go, even if she bitched and moaned and didn’t want to. She had someone who cared enough about her to make sure she felt wanted. She had one person in a city of millions of people who gave a crap that she existed, and she doesn't know if Nebula does -- she assumes she doesn’t, based on what she knows from her file and what she’s talked about.

It's a thought that makes her feel a little sad.

“I hope things get better,” Natasha says finally as she takes out a handful of bills and shoves them across the bar, indicating she’ll pay for both of their shares. “Merry Christmas, Gabby.”

She gets up and heads towards the door, stepping out of the warm embrace of the bar and into the chilly wind. She doesn’t turn to look back -- she’d never give herself away that easily, it’s an amateur move for any spy -- but she keeps thinking about Nebula as she turns a corner and steps into a small convenience store, ducking into the pasta aisle as she pulls out her phone again.

 

_Did my job. Talked to her. Will give you a report tomorrow if you want. Now I’m going the hell home. And don’t call me until the New Year._

_You know that’s my job, Romanoff._

 

She smiles at the text and then shakes her head as she presses a button, bringing the phone to her ear.

“Is this the Grinch Who Stole Christmas?”

“You can’t steal Christmas if it’s not here yet,” Natasha responds with a small smile. “How’s the tree?”

“Eh.” Clint sounds distracted. “Falling apart, as usual. But don’t worry, she’s still got some life left in her. How was the thing Fury asked you to do?”

“Fine,” Natasha says quickly, not wanting to go into detail. It’s not that she doesn’t want to talk to Clint about anything, because for the first time in awhile, she actually does. But she thinks this is another part of her that she might want to keep locked away in her box, at least for the time being.

“Well, that’s good,” Clint says. In the lull of his speech, Natasha can hear faint carols filtering through the phone line. She raises an eyebrow.

“Are you playing music because you know I’m not there to shut it off?”

“You’re a mean one, Mrs. Grinch.”

Natasha rolls her eyes at a bottle of vodka sauce. “If I say I’m actually really looking forward to coming back and being at the apartment with you, will I still get to be a Grinch?”

“Depends.” Clint sounds thoughtful. “Do you still want to strangle someone with my Christmas lights?”

“Well, that’s a given,” Natasha responds immediately. “And double my need for that if it’s any international tourist walking around Rockefeller Center.”

Clint laughs openly, and Natasha can’t help but smile at the sound.

“You know, Nat...I know it’s only been a few days, but I missed you.”

Natasha grips the phone a little more tightly on instinct. “Even with my hatred of the holidays?” she asks, trying to keep her voice light to hide any stray emotions.

Clint snorts. “Yeah, even then. Look, get home safe, okay? Call me if Fury throws any more last minute missions at you and I'll yell at him myself. It’s the holidays, dammit.”

He hangs up, all business and protocol. It's what they were used to -- quick succinct conversations filled with banter, indicative of what they’re used to having when they’re on the road. As Natasha is putting her phone back in her pocket, she has a second thought and takes it out again. This time, when she opens her text thread, she clicks Clint's personal cell phone instead of their comms.

 

_Don’t wait up for me, Hawkeye._

 

When the response comes through a moment later, it makes her smile, the warmth filling her body again and melting away some of the ice that she knows has collected and hardened over the years.

 

_Can’t make that promise, Tasha._

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @isjustprogress


End file.
